If I were to tally up the cost of my Kronos Marauder, modules and all, in it’s current configuration, I’ve probably sunk 1.25 billion ISK into the ship. It’s that expensive because it’s not only a second level technology (T2) ship, but it takes some serious hardware fitting to make it an excellent PvE ship. It’s good enough to have had an ROI that was less than two months long. When was the last time you had such a large expense with such a short ROI? If this was RL, I’d be fist pumping in the office.

Now along comes the Nestor, the new Sisters of Eve (SoE) first technology level (T1) battleship. The initial sell prices were at about 1.9 billion ISK in Dodixie, though some think they can get more.

Initial Nestor Dodixie Prices

The price will stabilize at around 1.6 or 1.7 billion ISK in all likelihood. That’s over 60% more expensive than my Kronos hull. How can this T1 ship, with some great stats mind you, but still a T1 ship, cost so much? The answer is in the exchange rate between LP and ISK.

If you’re an old hand at EVE Online, you may want to just skip to the next paragraph. If you’re a new bro, here’s how it works. LP is awarded to you, along with some ISK and perhaps loot, as reward for completing missions for NPC agents. LP is awarded in increments from about 1000 LP for an easy level IV mission, to just over 6000 LP for a hard level IV mission like Worlds Collide. For Level I through III missions, reduce the award considerably. This is fairly standard across all NPC agents, no matter the faction. However, you can only spend LP in the LP store of the faction that awarded it to you. These LP are used to buy items that are unique to that faction. Thus, if you want to buy blue print copies (BPCs) for SoE ships, you have to earn SoE LP with which to buy them. There is a small ISK fee too, but most of the “cost” is in LP.

The cost of each BPC is in the public database. The Astero frigate BPC costs 30,000 LP, the Stratios costs 120,000 LP and the Nestor costs 600,000 LP. Here I can tell you why the Nestor final price will likely be 1.6 billion. An Astero sells for about 85 mISK on the market now. The BPC costs for a Stratios is four times the LP of an Astero BPC. Four times the Astero market price is 340 mISK. That’s about the price of a Stratios hull. If we extend that to the Nestor, which is 20 times the LP cost of an Astero, it’s ISK price will be around 1.7 bISK.

But LP doesn’t cost any ISK you say and the ship costs are just pure profiteering? That’s just not true. There is a very high cost to that LP. In order to earn enough LP to buy one Stratios BPC, I have to run at least 30 level IV missions. If you run a full loot and salvage, one man operation, and you’re slow like me, it takes from 30 minutes to 120 minutes to run a mission. If you assume a 60 minute average completion time per mission, that’s a 30 hour investment in real time. And since time is money, the LP earned are most certainly not “free.” I can guarantee you I will not be lowering the cost of my Stratios hulls. It’s just not worth my time to sell them for less than I deserve.

And that’s interesting economics to me. I make something, a ship, for a lot of time investment and a little bit of ISK. I sell it for a lot of ISK. In a game like EVE Online, what’s the economic reasoning behind allowing that to happen? I mean, in real life that’s like creating fine art and selling it. It’s a lot of time investment with little money spent but can be sold for an amount seemingly beyond its material value. So is my ship manufacturing filling the same niche in the EVE Online economy that fine art fills in the RL economy? That’s the odd question I’ve had cross my mind repeatedly during my mission running and SoE hull production, and I’ve not come to any conclusions about it. What do you think?

One thing I do know, I’m gonna keep doing it. It’s good ISK, and I’m still working on the mission blitzing data. I’ll have more to say on that in about three weeks.

Fly Careful

- Mabrick

PS: Go back up to the graphic and take a look at the description on the big picture of the Nestor. Obviously some Caldari punk teenagers have already hacked and altered the public database.

He’s been around the block a time or five. With over 15 years of MMO playing under his belt and a memory that reaches back to pencils and dice, he offers his insights into the not so virtual reality we call Eve Online.

the boy

supply and demand

Ban

You beat me to it.

Titshit

LP is designed as a isk sink, and the isk sunk into the LP is the largest portion of the costs. Even when the LP supply versus demand gets to the point that it’s even with the other faction stores, it will still be over 1 bil. It’s nowhere near that value when compared to other ships at that cost.

lol

SOE LP will never get that cheap as they have the best probe and probe launcher items in their store, those will keep the price of that LP sky high until they nerf those 2 items or give other factions equally good ones.

timmy

Why would you want to buy this ship anyway? The stats are terrible and it was a complete waste of time for CCP to introduce it.

frankster

Take your negativity away from here and let CCP have a go at doing something different.

AxelF

Of course you can do your lvl4 missions in Osmon on better/cheaper ship then this.

ThatOneGuy

It’s not a T1 ship, it’s a faction ship. And it’s new. Of course it’s going to be expensive…

lol noob writters

TL,DR also lp is given in null sec now so lp worth is dropping

Sold

Only Navy faction LP, not pirate faction. Try again/

Guest

It is a T1 ship. It is also a faction ship. But most importantly it is a PIRATE faction ship. (i know, SoE are not “pirates”, rabble rabble, but that doesnt change anything about the ship being classified on the same level as rattlesnake and vindicator, and not navy raven and such)

But yeah, retarded and useless post… “ship is expensive” – because it is in the game for one day and is a pirate faction ship… surprise much?

Daniel Plain

in other exciting news, the sky is still blue and the sun is unlikely to explode in the near future.

The Obvious

Supply v Demand. It’s a faction ship, not a standard t1 ship, you are a cheap bastard if your kronos is only 1.25b, etc etc.

Full Goblin

Its called supply and demand you autistic mongoloid….

Billbo

“He’s been around the block a time or five. With over 15 years of MMO playing under his belt”

But apparently has no idea how the market in EVE works when “New shiny’s” come out within the first week. o7

asweetvet

Mate, I’m the first to try and be open minded about this site and its standards to the articles that get published. I am also among the few people who still read this site and try to avoid personal attacks aimed at the writers, deprived of any constructive criticism.

Having said all that, this “article” was inaccurate and shit. You should be ashamed.

3 years experience

ZOMG DAY 2 NEW HULL OVERPRICES!
quick call the publishers.
heres a hint, i bought my Ascendancy Delta for 900mil. Go look at the market price and see if I don’t feel stupid.

but not as stupid as you for making such a silly fuss.

Sold

Ship is crap. Only idiots or collectors trying to finish their SoE collection will buy it. Prices will come down once people realize how shit it is, and for reasons OP stated himself. It simply doesn’t do anything worthwhile. It should settled down to 600M isk eventually.

Tiago D’Agostini

No it will not go to that price becuse then peopel will use their SOE LP into other things, like probe launchers.

Guess

It wont ever hit that low, mostly due to the LP cost of 600k add in the factor for the isk cost for purchasing the print as well (150m) I highly doubt ANYONE is going to be willing to sell the prints for less than 750m isk as a MINIMUM, THE only way this will change in future will be if CCP tinkers with the LP costs (possibley the isk cost as well) for the prints and lowers them.
One thing do think ccps should introduce is SOE faction salvage drones, data analyzers and relic analyzers.

#iskbot1337

comparing the worst marauder with 11med/low slots with a brand new WH must-have pirate faction battleship with 12 med/low slots totally make sense

Patrick Kilroy

It is only a “must have” in WHs if you’re below C5. I would even argue C4 doesn’t want them, but at the very least if you live in a C5, you escalate with capitals to begin with. Nestors don’t fit that doctrine.

Tiago D’Agostini

Yet that worse marauder is far far superior to the Nestor in almost any imaginable situation

lol

go back to botting, leave the thinking to the humans.

Erutpar

This isn’t a Tech I battleship, This is a pirate battleship. Traditionally Pirate faction ships are better than their Tech I and Tech II counterparts and generally more expensive too. So not sure what the Author is thinking.

guest

It is a T1 Battleship. Or do you see any Morphite, Research and all the other stuff on it?
It just happens to be a T1 ship constructed by a non-empire faction.

While most of your other points are also just plain wrong (ever actually checked prices on pirate BS and Marauders? No? Maybe you should.), you main point is valid, this article is nothing more but Cpt. Obvious pointing out the obvious.

Snorkel

Yes pirate faction IS T1, however, CCP’s ranking, for mods and ships, goes as follows (worst to best):
Standard T1 -> Navy Faction/Storyline -> T2 -> Pirate faction/Deadspace -> Officer. This means that even though a pirate faction doesn’t take any T2 material to produce, it’s still superior to T2, hence the higher meta level.

your the only one wrong here

Actually no 1) T1 and faction are not the same, if you think they are compare the meta level… its not the same. 2)Faction/Pirate BS’s are always more expensive than T1 and usually are more expensive than T2 unless it is a very specialized needed ship for certain actions (Black ops BS’s comes to mind) 3) They are statistically much better than T1 and slightly better than T2.

Your English teacher

“your the only one wrong here”
Wrong.
“you’re the only one wrong here”

slothen

>Talks about how long it takes to get LP
>30m-120m completion time with marauder
>full loot and salvage

lol

valid point, LP grinders aren’t salvaging anything they shoot everything and turn in the mission ASAP then rinse and repeat.

Deifirtep

Two Battleships running the mission with a noctis following behind to clean up works very well on keeping the income stream pumped in all directions…. of course… you have to have 3 accounts to do this so there is that downside.

sour

and any decent vindi fit cost like double ur kronos and its still a t1 battleship! macharial is the same, whats ur point??

http://www.eveonline.com/ hoodaticus

Tech 2 meta level is only 5. Faction is higher.

don’t be stupid

This was explained in the article apparently you missed it. Pirate and Fction BS’s cost more than T2’s for the same damn reason the nestor will they are all earned with LP, or are extremely rare null sec drops.

Rolls eyes

Cause if I was going to fly a cheap marauder it would totally be a shitty Kronos and not a Paladin. I bet you even fit shitty rails too.

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